Thanksgiving is a wonderful time of year, full of quality time with family, football, and of course, delicious food. It can also be one of the most stressful times of year. Preparing for Thanksgiving is a chore. Cleaning up after Thanksgiving can often feel overwhelming. It’s not easy to keep in mind smart waste management practices, but there are ways to clean up in a more resourceful way and make things easier for yourself. Here are three ways you can make the post-Thanksgiving clean-up a little easier on yourself this year without being wasteful.
Everything Aluminium
Aluminium can save you hours this Thanksgiving season, and it’s the perfect candidate for recycling, as well. Whether you need easy pumpkin puree, gravy, broth, cranberries, or even yams (we won’t tell), you can find it in an aluminium can at your local grocery store. If you want to save time on dishes, you can cook and serve the festive dinner in disposable aluminium tins. At the end of the day, instead of hours of washing pots, pans, and plates, you can toss all the disposable tins and cans into recycling bin. Aluminium is one of the most recycled materials and using recycled aluminium takes only 5% of the energy used to make new aluminium. Just make sure to rinse them out before you recycle.
Let’s Talk Leftovers
After the big day, you’re bound to have plenty of leftovers. In fact, surveys say that Americans will throw away about $293 million in uneaten food after Thanksgiving. It’s a staggering number, but sometimes all of those leftovers just won’t fit in your fridge. So what can you do? Well, for one thing, you can share your bounty with those less fortunate in the true Thanksgiving spirit. Contact local food banks or homeless shelters and see if they’ll accept excess Thanksgiving food. Invite your neighbors over to help you eat up all those goodies. You might just make someone’s day. You can also use food scraps like vegetable peels and bread to make compost. However, bones from the turkey will need to be tossed.
Everyone Pitch In
One of the benefits to having the whole family together is that you don’t have to do all of this alone. After the dinner, recruit a few volunteers to help you clean up the kitchen, throw away what needs to be thrown away and recycle what needs to be recycled. You can divvy up the tasks and turn it into a game, especially if any of the kids are helping. If you have a big family, you can also have a potluck style Thanksgiving. Everyone can bring something different to the table and each person is responsible for the dish they bring. That way no one person is overwhelmed with too much clean-up.
Here at Brazos Valley Trash Valet & Recycling, we hope you have a wonderful Thanksgiving and a stress-free clean-up. And if you live outside of the Bryan-College Station limits and need help with recycling and waste management, give us a call at (979) 777-8968. We can help with both your regular waste management as well as your recycling, whether it be plastics, cans, cardboard, or any of our other acceptable materials. We’re thankful for you and want to do our part to make your Thanksgiving clean-up that much easier.
